Before and After
by Pepsi Colah
Summary: Wanting a second chance Greedler, who was cursed with immortality, spent all his years attempting to create the perfect time machine. Expecting it to be a failure, it actually succeeds. And he winds up in the past thinking it's a dream when it's real.


_**Before and After**_

He was the Onceler, the man who let his greed take a hold of himself and caused the end of all trees. He was nothing but an abomination, a monster, lurking in human flesh.

It's been so long since the last tree fell and the lorax lifted away, so long but still unable to age. The Onceler had been cursed. A curse of immortaily, forever living out his life and seeing the world end with his own eyes. The polution got so worse it eventually became to poisionious for anything to to live in, except him, always eternally _alone_.

_It's been too long._

The Onceler sighed and patted his now full stomache and sat down at the campfire around his base. His base consisted of mostly his old brokendown factory, the only thing that still stood in the middle of nowhere that wasn't decaying or already destoryed. His old house was teared apart by the past locals who accused him of being Lucifer himself because he never physically aged. _Although it didn't matter anyway because he already considered himslef as the big bad, after all his motto once was "How bad can I possibly be...?"._

He burped which snapped him back to the present. He layed on the ground, feeling the warmth from the fire while still rubbing his full tummy feeling his old, old worn out clothes. It was awhile since he last ate like this as most of the animal population had died out a few years back. Infact pretty much anything edible was extremely hard to come by nowadays.

The Onceler stood up before grabbing the uneaten meat and and began to lie it out ontop of a rack to dry out and preserve it for later.

He sighed again as he stared at the openening in the roof of the factory, where the sun shone though illumating the inside. The suns position let him know it was midday. The skies became a smog free vista a couple of decades ago, but the ozone layer was serverly damaged to the point of it being nearly impossible to go out in the sun for long with out getting a sunburn.

He wondered over to a corner of the large room where tons of scrap metal and other odd machines lay and begun to grab some parts. The oncerler picked up some sheets of metal and some left over wiring from his previous failed projects.

His projects consisted of machines that he made to allow him to travel into the past. Some of them worked. But only to a few seconds or a day into the past, nothing to bring him to where he wanted to be. _Back at the start, anywhere before his thneed had become a hit sucess._

He carried the parts over to a giant machine that was shapped awkwardly like a sphere that had just enough room to fit something inside. It was his latest 'project'. He worked on it for years and now it is almost complete. He just needed a few more parts.

One of those parts happened to be an anochor, Something that'll pull him down the flow of time into the past. He had just the thing for that anchor. It was his once prized treasure but now the bane of his exsistance.

_His invention, the thneed._

He dropped the rest of the parts on the ground beside the machine before grabbing a welding torch. He slid on a pair of heavy duty glasses to pretect his eyes from the arc. He could go with out them but there always runs the risk of getting welders flash.

He fired it up and began to weld on some supports to hold it in place incase of the worse happening. He always needed to be preared. A bead of sweat rolled down his head as he finished it up.

He stood back and whiped the sweat from his head, admring the work he did. It was almost ready, now all that was needed was his thneed. It lay at his bedside, forever in mint condition. He didn't know if it was just there to remind him of what he done or if it was just really, _really_ durable. Either way he stalked over to it and grasped it.

He felt it though his old tattered ballroom gloves. It was the same feel as always. Very soft and tender, almost like meeting a old friend you've once lost. He could still smell the sweet refreshing scent of the thneed, as much as relaxing as it was there was still work needed to be done.

The Onceler stalked back to the machine, almost hesistant. He shook any regrets out of his head, the possibility of loosing his thneed was worth the risk. Even if this machine didn't work quite right like the others it was okay, as long as it got him to where he wanted.

His thneed was the perfect anchor, It wouldn't bring him back back before he cut down a tree, but it would still bring him to a time when the thneed was considered a failure.

That was plenty of time to undo his mistakes, and possibly stop anything that would make that world turn out like this one.

The Onceler swallowed back the hesitation and placed the thneed into the hollow part of the sphere. Soon he pulled some wire our of a worn velvet pocket and wired it to the thneed, connecting it to a box known as a Flux Capacitor. The Flux Capacitor waswhat bended the time, allowing him to travel into the past. He closed the compartment, the time machine now fully completed.

_It was time_

He bravely pressed some numbers and calculations into the side pannels of the sphere, and got ready.

The machine started to vibrate. Soon The Onceler grabbed onto the handles he had installed a while back to support himself in the sphere as the ground shook.

The Machine glowed and hummed. Everything seemed to be going great. He could feel it, The familliar movement of being sucked into a vortext that suddenly made things feel 'tight'. The tightness was probably him shifting out of that era and into the next.

Soon the patches of reality started to blur and break apart. He was really starting to feel the motion sickness already, and the shifting world around his eyes wasn't helping him that all. He blinked, bringing a hand to rub and clear his eyes.

For a second he could've swore he saw a tree, not one of those fake ones that O'hare guy tried to sell. The real ones, truffula trees.

A great leap of joy jumped in his heart. For once something in his miserable immortal life things had looked up. The Onceler smiled, it was the first and only smile since he cut down the last tree.

He closed he eyes, listening to the humming. He could faintly hear the familiar melodies the humming fish used to sing. He could smell the strong scent of fresh air and truffula tree. It smelled great.

He wished he listened to the Lorax in the beginning, but with this new chance he could do just that.

"-BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEPBEEP!"

His eyes opened, he was crestfallen at the error noise the machine was giving.

"-No no no no no...!" He paniced. Quickly he punched in as many calculations as he could into the machine that would possibly fix the error.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEP... BEEEP... BEEP...beep...!" The machine slowed down. The tree's stared to disapear as each crack in reality started to repair it's self.

He watched in horror as one by one a crack dissapeared and with it the refreasing smells and fresh air.

"No!" The Onceler yellped as he lept at the last crack of reality, deperately hoping to catch the strand of the past and keep it open.

He was almost there and it was almost in his reach... If only he could just-

"C-CRACK..BANG!..." The elder looked to the side as he heard the machine spark and crackle. Soon he was hit with a wave of air so strong it knocked him away from the tear and into the wall and out of the sphere and out of the debree from the machine exploding. "Un...ff..." He grunted out as he fell to the floor behind a table which gave him coverage. He layed there unmoving. Only one thought plagued his mind.

_He screwed up again._

Still unmoving, he layed there, the entire scene replaying over and over to torture him on how close he was to sucess. What went wrong?

His calculations were perfect. He spent most of his immortaility working the kinks and failures out with previous machines.

_It should of been fool proof. _

Soon the day had turnen into night, and along with night came the switch from the blistering heat to the cold freezing hell.

He started to shiver. He got up, knowing he couldn't say stay in that spot forever moping. He made his way over to the broken machine, to see what could be salvaged and what couldn't. He causually picked up parts and made his way to the center of the debree ondering whats left.

He couldn't believe it.

_His __thneed__ survived._

It was ripped down a side and torn some, but it still was usable. He gave a big sigh of releif, glad atleast the most important part of this project of his survived.

The anchor was the most important thing, With out it he wouldn't be able to even dream of returning to that point in time. Boy was he glad. Soon he found him self yawning.

The Onceler had begun to feel tuckered out from the day's work.

He decieded to call it a night, and left the rarer parts on the table that probably saved him from a world of hurt. The onceler wrapped his thneed around his neck, enjoying the smooth relaxing scent and made his way over to a makeshift cot that contained a bundle of blankets.

He layed down and pulled a few comforters ontop of him, feeling extra snug and with the promise of a new day and aother project he found himself falling asleep to the moon light that shone brightly though the very crack in the ceiling he looked at earlier. He fell into a sweet bliss known as sleep.

_Too bad he didn't notice his thneed slightly glowing or the returning tears in reality._

* * *

"Wark!" "Tweet tweeeet" "Hmmm la da be doooo~"

What were those noises, they sounded so famillar but it was so forien at the same time. The onceler groaned and covered his face with a hand to block out the morning shine.

It was just way to early to begin his day. With that in mind he rolled over onto his side only to have his nose ticked by a blade of grass. The Onceler sneezed.

**Wait**- _Grass_?

He shot up quick from his lying position and stared at the ground beneith him.

He was lying in the middle of a field. A god damned_ GRASS _field, and no clue how he got there.

He figured it to be a dream. The onceler relaxed into the soft earth, enjoying the peace and tranquility that the dream had brought him. He always enjoyed these kind of dreams, they brought him much comfort _even if it hurt thinking about it when he was awake._

He reached a hand up into the air, reacing for the clouds that looked so close but were so far. He then placed it back down under his head.

He could almost feel himself dozing off _again._

"CHOP-CHOP-CHOP" He opened his eyes to the annoyance of the sickening chops of a tree being cut down. "CHOP CHOP...C-craccckkkk" He heard the tree fall.

_"Wait, this isn't a nightmare right?"_He voiced inside his head as he sat back up, to look around for the source of the noise. Finding no one but the sound of a tree being dragged away he decided to get up and follow the noise.

_"W-why am I dreaming this..."_The Onceler questioned himself walking into a clearing to see the tree stump of the first tree he ever cut down. _"_Why does this scene always haunt me..." He voiced with no answer.

Knowing where his house was placed he made his way into that direction. This dream was bringing back some warm nostalgia of when he first met the lorax. His face twitched into a smile remembering how much of an annoyace he was the the first time they met.

Boy did he ever regret making that fool thneed at times, it cost him the world and his friendship. It was he said that one time he thought things over with himself _"The things that you do are completely un-good"._

He came to another clearing to the sight of his younger self removing the soft tuffs of the tree. Strange, where's the lorax? Didn't he show up about then?

He walked up to his younger self and stood behind him, observing him use the tree tuffs as pom-poms .

"You know, these thneeds are completely un-good, dispite what they can provide..." He rasped out attempting to reason with him even if he was a dream.

"Ah-aaa!" You younger counterpart screamed, dropping both tuffs and dropped to the ground.

"..." The older Onceler leaned over the younger and lifted an eyebrow.

"W-Who-?"

"Easy, You." He rolled his eyes at the obvious question.

"W-what! I-I must be dreaming."

"Ain't that an understatment, eh, Oncie?" The Onceler replied sarcastically. "W-Wait how did you know my-" Once again The Onceler cut Oncie off "... Do you really expect me to say the same thing again...?" He glared.

"B-But you can't be _me!"_Moaned Oncie feeling freaked out that this man insisted he was him.

"Oh... But I am..." The Elder took off his signature hat and glasses to reveal a slightly older looking Oncie. The only difference being the sharpened teeth caused by being forced to mainly be a meat eater and green eyes caused by the polution durring his earlier year.

"You see...? I'm real one..." He gave a crooked smile after leaning down on one leg to poke his counterpart. "Not you..." He moved in closer.

"W-what're you..." The younger asked uncomfortable that the other was in his comfort zone. He tried to move back only to be pinned down by the elder.

"...Call me Greedler..." He voiced out, dead set on having some 'fun' time in this dream of his. Greedler moved in closer so that the their noses touched. "S-stop I-I-" Once was cut off as Greedler took the oppertunity to close in and gain enterece at the same time.

"Mmmmpphh!" He tried to talk but it was futile since Greedler began explore ever creavice in the other's mouth. The elder of the two casually snaked a hand up Oncie's shirt to lightly caress upwards to find a perk nub.

"Nnnn- No!" Scream Oncie, suddendly remembering his hands were free and swatted at Greedler's face.

Finding the blow totally unexpected Greed just sat still with the look and air of disbelief. "You... Just... Hit me." He rasped out looking at Oncie. "An-And It hurt..."

"...S-So... You just suddenly kissed me!"

"Y-Yeah and...-" Greedler froze, unmoving. The other used this chance to escape and crawled out from under the elder and ran into his house.

Greedler stood up and punched a tree making it wobble slightly.

_He screwed up again. _

He hit the tree again out of anger. Why did he always muck these things up, this was his one and only chance. And as much wisdom he had gained over the years he still felt like an idiot, something he strived so hard to not be.

"S-Shit." Greedler sweared. He was less then an hour into the past and he already fucked things up. His past self probably thought he was some crazy lunatic, hell with all the years gone he probably looked like one to.

The Onceler crossed his arms. Now how was he susposed to gain the trust of his younger counterpart, Oncie and convince that the thneed wasn't the best way to go?


End file.
